


flipside

by witisoverrated



Category: Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: AU, Detective Jughead Jones, Detective Noir, F/M, Hardboiled, Jealousy, Mystery, Obsession, Veronica is a femme fatale, if you're looking for fluff you're looking in the wrong place, or is she?, riverdale is a VERY dark town, this shit is bleak as hell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:36:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29895729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witisoverrated/pseuds/witisoverrated
Summary: You grow up covered in dirt and eventually, you become one with it. You start to recognise the stench before you even walk into the room. You feel it polluting the air like the cigarettes that you smoke. Then you follow its trail until the light dies out and it’s only you and the darkness. So, has the darkness always been yours or is it someone else’s path that you’re chasing?
Relationships: Jughead Jones & Veronica Lodge, Jughead Jones/Veronica Lodge
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	flipside

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so here we go.
> 
> So I know I should be focusing on my other fics, but I really wanted to write something for Jeronica week. I saw a post floating around tumblr and was so geeked about the film noir prompt. However, I started plotting and writing and it's clearly not going to be a short, little story that I thought it would be. 
> 
> First thing first, this is a dark story. It's a very bleak take on the town and the people of Riverdale. Like a typical film noir, a lot of dark themes will be explored here. Meaning some taboo topics like paedophilia, addiction, death, sexual assault, etc. will most likely be coming up. Second thing, some of the characters are KIND of OOC - not by much, but they might do some questionable things that might not be in line with their personality/morals. Again, it's a noir so there's no such thing as a good guy in this type of hardboiled scenario. And one last thing, Veronica won't be appearing right away.

You grow up covered in dirt and eventually, you become one with it. You start to recognise the stench before you even walk into the room. You feel it polluting the air like the cigarettes that you smoke. Then you follow its trail until the light dies out and it’s only you and the darkness. So, has the darkness always been yours or is it someone else’s path that you’re chasing? 

He asked himself that every time and every time, he ended up right back where he started - washing dirt off his hands.

He winced, blood dripping into the sink and blade scratching against his throat. _Needs to stop drinking_ , he thought for the third time that morning as he turned on the tap and watched the pink-tinged water circled the drain. He yanked the washcloth off the rack and suffocated himself with it. He gave it a moment then kicked the cabinet shut and assessed the damage in the mirror. The red dot was weak and slow and he wiped it away with his thumb before pulling on yesterday’s shirt. He still looked a little shadowy under the eyes but he suspected that that was never going away. It wasn’t the wisest idea to sleep in a dirty suit, but that last glass of bourbon knocked him out like a knuckle duster to the chin. He couldn’t find the aftershave anywhere; he must have run out weeks ago but kept forgetting to pick up a new bottle. He was forgetful these days. In between the false leads and second-rate perps, he didn’t have time for much else. 

Speaking of which, his stomach growled as if to scold him for the twisting emptiness. He rotated his old Timex over his wrist; the face read 9:10. Time for breakfast then. He walked over to the desk, messy and cluttered from weeks of useless intel, and ripped the gray plaid jacket off the back of the chair. There was still a bundle of fives sitting in the pocket from last night. That should be enough to cover a plate of hash browns and eggs, maybe some bacon on the side too. Whatever it may be, it will undoubtedly be better than the shit they serve at the Wyrm.

He usually drove the car; didn’t travel any other way anymore. It would be quicker that way too, but he got time today and some fresh air might be good for the hangover. The Serpents used to give him trouble, disgusted that one of their own spoke the pig’s language. FP did his best to keep the snakes under control but he was long gone now, his reach didn’t extend over state lines. Things only started quieting down after he threw Tall Boy and Penny Peabody in Shankshaw. That did the job of sending a clear message that he didn’t give a rat’s ass about who was who in this town; he’d feed anyone to the wolves for a big enough paycheque. The locals thought he might have had some venom left in him because of the name. They were wrong about that too, he stopped identifying as one or the other a long time ago. You could move on up to Elm Street but if you were born south, you’d always be trailer trash to everyone else. It didn’t matter what your address said. The whole town was rotten anyway; some parts of it just gotten better at hiding it than others.

The diner was empty and quiet, just how he liked it. Pop Tate nodded at him from behind the counter and he mirrored him, then settled onto the crimson leather stool. He looked sallow this morning, his cheeks pasty and his forehead smattered with dry patches. He didn’t know if old age was to be blamed or the sudden turn of the weather.

“You look like you’ve had a long night, son.”

He nodded dully.

The man didn’t press any further and poured him a cup of Joe. He took a sip, the bitter taste scorching his tongue.

“What’s the specials?”

“Today we’ve got waffles with turkey bacon.”

His stomach rumbled again but this time in approval. He took another swallow of the coffee to quell it for the moment.

“Sounds good.”

There was no sign of Laura or Moira or whatever her name was. He was glad for that. Nice girl, really, and pretty too. It wasn’t her fault that he couldn’t stand the sight of that fucking uniform.

Today’s newspaper laid untouched next to the coffee machine. He wasn’t a regular by any means but he did grow up paying three dollars a shake; he knew no one would care if he went around the back to grab it. Instead, he just squinted at the upside-down headline: ‘ _School Teacher’s Death Ruled as Suicide._ ’ He didn’t need to read the fine prints to know it was referring to Robert Phillips. He was a part of the bust-up last week. Long story short, Phillips sold to the wrong kid and the parents wanted his head for it. As it usually went, they paid him to take care of it. Phillips, despite his intellectual bravado, was Southside business and the local law enforcement didn’t touch that sort of thing unless the higher-ups had something to do with it. Keller wanted to reveal Phillip’s identity to the public on the day of arrest, which was fine by him as long as they left his name out of it. Minetta had other ideas; some mumbo jumbo about The Register’s spin piece and how that would smear the department’s name for not dealing with it sooner. Guess they won’t be dealing with it at all. Phillips probably knew that a lot of his “associates” would be coming for his neck when it came out that he was the ‘Sugarman’ so he’d off himself before they could. _Smart choice_ , he thought and drank the rest of his coffee. He heard Malachai didn’t take kindly to loose ends. He’d seen it first hand and he was willing not much had changed since.

The windows were all frosted up from the high fog. He couldn’t make out much outside but he could hear the purring of an engine and its death. The door jingled, a unique greeting of its own, followed by heavy footsteps treading the lino floor.

“Huh. Didn’t expect to see you here of all people.”

Pop put down his plate then topped up his cup without a word. The latest patron sat two stools away from him and held his hand up as a silent request for the caffeine. The man dumped his suitcase on the benchtop like one would a drunk hooker.

“Bad day, Paul?”

Paul Sowerberry was defense attorney that got sucked into Riverdale and all its shady dealings after a brief stint at representing Warden Norton. That was the problem with this town; once you’re past that ‘ _Welcome To…_ ’ sign, there was no turning back. Paul learned that the hard way. He went from a six-month stay to owning a business on the corner of Maple and Elm street. All lawyers were scheming slime balls in his book but if he had to say, Paul was the best of the bunch. He was the kind of attorney that knew not to stick his nose where it didn’t belong. The same couldn’t be said about the DA and her team.

“Nah,” he waved him off, “It’s one less crook for me to deal with so I consider it a good day. Phillips was going to be a tough case to beat anyway.”

He snorted. Only in this town that it would be considered a good day when someone dies.

“Don’t know how much I buy the suicide ruling,” Paul said glumly, crisscrossing his fingers over the chipped bench.

“Then start. There’s nothing suspicious about a man on the verge taking the easy way out,” he snide as he shovelled bits of bacon into his mouth, “We all know somebody who has something to lose if Phillips opened his mouth.”

“Well, he knew that but he took his chances when he hired me anyway.”

He swallowed down the starchy waffles and chased it with the coffee. “A desperate man does desperate things. What else is new?”

Paul nodded evenly and shook off the burgundy blazer that washed him out. A hot plate was set down before him a minute later – scrambled eggs and a couple of sausages. The two of them ate in still silence, pushing the coffee pot back and forth until it was empty.

“I doubt it’s anything but they found this in Phillip’s cell,” the older man took a small scrap of square out of his suitcase and offered it to him. It was a matchstick box with no matches in it; just a few lines that made up letters scrawled on the sides, “He doesn’t have any family so it’s up to me to decide what to do with it. It’s no use to me, but I figured you better hold onto it – in case something shows up later.'

He wiped the residues of maple syrup and coffee off with a stack of napkins. “You’re not convinced he hung himself, are you?”

“It’s Shankshaw, Mister Jones,” Paul reminded his tone dire and his lips pursed into a tight line, “You don’t die unless they say so.”

He supposed the man had a point. Though he wouldn’t put it past them handing Phillips the ropes.

* * *

It was barely eleven when his first client of the day sauntered through the door. That caused some disappointment on his part; he had planned to take the day off and finish the bottle of Maple Rum that had been rolling around in his bottom drawer. He shouldn’t complain; rent was due in a week and he was going to need the extra money to make it this month.

He couldn’t place her, and that sounded some alarm bells. The woman was a slim, stealth thing with pea-green eyes and dark brown locks that she’s raked back into a severe bun that coiled at the nape of her neck. The effect was to make her look older and more authoritative than she was. She had a stony chin that gave her bland face some character. It almost made her look a little mean.

She fixed her thick-rimmed glasses and shared a steely look with him as he nods at the chair, urging for her to take a seat so they could get on with business. “I hear that you deal with private matters.”

He contained a brittle laugh. “It does say private investigator on the door, does it not? Miss…?”

“Geraldine Grundy,” she introduced herself but didn’t extend a hand.

“New in town?” he asked for curiosity’s sake.

“Yes,” she admitted snippily, “Almost five months now, actually.”

He nodded; that explained why he’d never seen her before. “What can I do for you?”

She frowned at the question. Her mouth inheriting the pruny look. “I’ve recently been threatened.”

He straightened in his chair, reaching for a notepad at the corner of his desk and the ballpoint pen hidden behind the telephone. “Alright. How?”

“Blackmail”

“What kind of blackmail?”

The woman hesitated, causing him to look up from the first two lines that he’d messily scratched down. He arches a brow, “Well?”

There was a stiff pause before the brunette released a tortured exhale and unclasped the alligator-skin purse that sat on her lap. She struggled for a moment to rifle through its content but eventually, located a tanned envelope and slid it over to him.

“I take it you’ve got your prints all over this?”

She nodded regretfully.

It was thin and flimsy in his hold. The edges were a little bent from, he suspected, the content of her purse. There was no writing on it – no name, no address. He flipped the envelope over and saw the distinct tear around the flap. Inside it was a collection of black and white shots of Grundy herself and a familiar redhead; some of them looking friendly and others looking _too_ friendly. They weren’t the worst of its kinds but they were damning enough to ruin a life or three.

“Does Andrew know about this?”

Her eyes doubled the size behind those lenses. “You know Archie?”

Satisfied that her surprise was real and assured in the fact that his old friend didn’t send her, he dismissed her question with a reasonable justification. “This is a small town, Miss Grundy. Everyone knows everyone.”

He stuffed the pictures back into the envelope, and regurgitated the customary, “It’s two hundred a day plus expenses. First hour starts in…” his eye flicked down to his watch, “Twenty minutes. I work around the clock, except the hours between three and six in the AM. If I catch the creep and you want them dealt with, it’s an extra four-fifty for the trouble.”

“Tha – that’s ridiculous!” she sputtered.

“If you don’t like it then take it to the police.”

“You know I can’t do that!”

“That’s right,” he concurred smugly, “I heard Andrew’s been vying for that extra funding the town council has so generously offered up to local businesses. I bet a cheating scandal would really seal the deal for them.”

“It’s for a good cause,” Grundy grounded out, “The grant would help with the community center – kids, for god’s sake!”

“And good on Andrews for running a charity,” he praised with a hint of sarcasm, “Someone has to do it so the rest of us doesn’t have to. Unfortunately for you, the rest of us includes me so either cough up the money or get out of my office.”

It didn’t take long for then her to produce several hundred dollar bills. _So, she came prepared_ , he thought complacently, and counted at least seven of them.

“I still think your rate is absurd but here’s all I have on me for the moment.”

“Good enough for me,” he said laconically as she propelled the stack of dough towards him, her nail jabbing into Benjamin’s left eye, “You got time to answer some questions before you leave?”

She replied with a stiff nod.

“Where’d you find the pictures?”

“The envelope was already sitting there on my doorstep when I got home from work,” Grundy explained with clinical precision, “I looked around to see if there was anybody around but it was just my neighbors, walking the dogs.”

“What time was this?”

“Around six o’clock.”

“And no note? Just the pictures?”

“Yes”

He glanced down at them again and asked, “You mind if I keep these?”

The woman shook her head when he waved the package in front of her so he tossed them in the top drawer.

He leaned back and made believe that he was thinking the whole thing over. “Any idea who might be behind this?”

“I can’t think of one person that would want to hurt Archie and I don’t think I know enough people to have made an enemy out of anyone.”

“You’re wrong,” he said sharp and short, “Andrews run a rec center that protects troubled kids. For most of them it’s a rebellious patch, for some of them it’s a cycle of crossing the wrong people. What about you?”

“What about me?” she returned.

“What do you do for money?”

Her jaw ticked and squared her scrawny shoulders. “I teach music at Riverdale High School. What does that have to do with anything?”

He jotted down that menial detail. “In case your line of work interferes with others. And when I say others, I mean dangerous others. Piss off any students lately?”

“The kids I teach are good kids,” Grundy replied, a touch defensive, “I’d even go as far as to say that they like having me around as their teacher.”

“Didn’t Alison Smith just started at Riverdale High?”

“So?”

“So, she’s Betty Cooper’s niece,” he surmised, “Considering that the women in that family tend to take a drastic approach in protecting their own, it’s not out of the question that she’d have it out for you, no?”

“She doesn’t know,” Grundy insisted with a snooty look to her pixie-like face. It didn’t match.

“You sure? Because someone other than you and Andrew knows, so I’d say it’s up for a debate who knows and who doesn’t.”

He could see her fists ball around the cheap material of her emerald skirt. “The girl doesn’t take any of my classes and I don’t think we’ve exchanged a word.”

“If I have a dollar for every time someone rules out am an unsuspecting stranger, I’d be retired by now,” he condescended and ripped a page off the spiral, “It’s a good thing that you haven’t told anyone, keep it that way – that means Andrew as well. I want you to call me if you can think of anyone with a motive and if more pictures or threatening letters show up, then you come straight to me. Got it?”

Grundy’s head bobbed like a dollar store mannequin. He handed her a business card and sent her on her way.

* * *

He followed his gut and trailed Alison Smith. Tracking a minor was always a bad idea, but his rate was supposed to make it worth the risk.

As a lively fifteen-year-old, Alison was a far cry from the typical Cooper girl. Betty and Polly and their iron-fisted mother walked around with a nervy edge, like someone had taken a hammer and chisel to their bones and was secretly chipping away at their perfectly contained austerity on the inside. Fortunately for Alison, she wasn’t cursed with such rigidness. It was the same head of blonde hair but a different childhood. She looked like a carefree teenage girl who liked to sit under the sun with a pop and a good book and pretend to be to the unimaginable wickedness that surrounded her. If only Betty Cooper had been so lucky.

Fifteen minutes went by before he got tired of pretending to bird watch. He had the keys in the ignition and his foot on the gas pedal when a mint Volkswagen Beetle pulled up next to the curb. Its tires screeching against the asphalt like a farm animal mid-slaughter. For whatever reason, Alison brightened at the sight and skipped down the bleachers and across the field. Her gangly limbs slipped through the broken chain links without any struggle; it looked well-practiced as if she’d done it many times before. The car door popped open and the blonde didn’t look before getting in. The only thing worse than trailing a minor was picking up one.

Dilton Doiley knew this. He concluded that either, the man didn’t care or he was prepared to bear the brunt of getting caught. If it’s the latter, then he would find out soon what that was like.

Alison’s giggle faded when the engine restarted. She kicked her flats off and crossed her ankles over the dashboard. She had no worries in the world because she was too innocent to know that the monster took form in a friend. He could tell that Doiley understood this by the way he drove off like a fugitive who needed a head start. The Volkswagen crept around the corner, leaving behind an idyllic backdrop of the football field on a Friday after school’s specials. The jocks still donned the same blue and gold bomber, cloaking themselves in the glory of misguided masculinity. They threw balls and traded fists, unaware of the meaningless existence they had to look forward to. The coach didn’t warn them about that – no one did – because boys will be boys until they’re men and didn’t know how to stop being boys. The cheerleaders lined a patch of grass next to the tracks and spelled out simple words that carried no meaning. They laughed even when nothing was funny and the sound burned his ears. So did the sight of wavy onyx hair set against olive skin and tanned thighs that peeked out from underneath the white and blue uniform, He knew he should quit wasting time and get a move on, but being a masochist that he was, he waited for her to turn around anyway.

_Eyebrows too thin. Forehead too wide. Eyes too far apart. Lips too thick. Too thin. Too bubbly. Too much like her from the back but not enough from the front._

Another car – a Lexus – swerved dangerously close to his, not bothering to slow for the speed bump. The liquor swished around the bottle in his passenger seat. He studied it until the liquid flatlined. His throat was immediately dry and itchy at the sight.

 _Stop drinking on the job,_ he thought but reached for it anyway.

* * *

Dilton Doiley was another casualty of the town’s unforgiving nature. He liked to blame it on the town because if he didn’t then his old pal was a pervert with no precaution. That wasn’t an uplifting thought that he needed to get through today. He was by no means a shining example of righteousness, but he was no predator either.

It was best to be delicate about it, so he waited until Alison headed for the bathroom. He knew just how fragile little girls with dead daddies can be. It wasn’t hard to come by teens like her in Riverdale. The kids here practically grew up surrounded by death or the fear of it anyway. Alison Smith wasn’t scared though, like her dad, she was the type of wounded that didn’t cave to trauma. With that being said, he doubted Alice Cooper had decided to try out a new parenting approach than the one she’d tormented her own children with.

He decided on getting drunk when he should have stopped at tipsy. Toni didn’t cut him off like she used to; that was five years ago when she thought they still had something to look forward to. She hadn’t asked him what he wanted either and poured him whatever was strong enough to smother the small talk they force themselves to share. She had an excuse tonight; a leggy blonde that kept her occupied with all the fluttering of her lashes. At least one of them wouldn’t be going home alone. He couldn’t remember the last time he found some company to occupy his time with. He considered it a professional hazard to screw a resident so the opportunities only arose whenever he went out of town, which was a rare occurrence. Riverdale and everything about it repelled him, but he couldn’t leave either. It was a sad catch-22 that he’d been conned into.

“I wouldn’t buy that next beer if I were you.”

Doiley didn’t make a run for it, not right away anyway. He licked the froth off his neatly trimmed mustache and smiled like he’d practiced it before in front of a mirror.

“J – Jughead! What are you doing here?”

It was a stupid question to ask. After all, he was a born and raised Southsider and they all got their fill at the Whyte Wyrm. It wasn’t as if they were welcomed elsewhere. If anything, it was him who should be asking the stubby, almost thirty-something what he was doing on his side of town.

“After work drinks,” he said dryly, raising his glass to his dishonor, “You know how it is.”

“You would know better than me. Running a comic store can’t be as stressful as your job,” Doiley forced a chuckle and drained his own pint. “Honestly, I don’t get to do this very often.”

“The drinking or Alison Smith?”

The man blanched a sickly grey shade that resembled a corpse. “I – It’s not w – what you think.”

“Save it. I can still get you for supplying a minor with alcohol.”

He dropped his eyes a little.

“How about this,” he tossed back the rest of his whiskey, letting it burn down his chest, “You stop talking to Betty’s niece and tell me what you know about Archie and what he’s doing outside of her?”

“Ali and I are just friends,” Doiley wiped the sweat off his forehead, committing to the lie, "There’s nothing more to it – honest!”

“Don’t worry about what I think, Doiley. Start worrying about what everybody else would if they knew you were taking a fifteen-yea-old girl for a joyride”

“This isn’t a joyride!” he squeaked like a mouse that had been snapped by a trap.

He flagged down a young Serpent and ordered another shot of fire whiskey. “Don’t tell me she’s your girlfriend?”

The grey tinge began to blend into the beet red that had smeared his cheeks. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Other than the fact that she’s not even close to being legal, and you’ve been out of school almost ten years now? Nothing.”

The man recoiled and began to twiddle his thumb. “I just like being around her.”

“And I’d like a big, fat steak for every meal, but we can’t always get what we want, can we?” He sucked on an ice cube, “What do you know about Archie and Grundy? Don’t say nothing. I know you volunteer twice a week at Andrew’s center, and she’s there four out of five days so you got some sharing to do.”

Doiley cracked like a nut. “They’re having an affair. Nobody knows for sure but,” he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bopping with some effort, “We all suspect something’s going on.”

“Even Betty?”

“Maybe not Betty,” he amended, “She thinks Geraldine is giving the kids at the center free music lessons.”

He pondered over that piece of information for a prolonged second. “I find it hard to believe that your little knitting circle has managed to keep it quiet. You expect me to believe that not one person has taken the liberty of telling Betty that her fiancé is nailing the town’s newcomer? Grundy hasn’t even been around for long enough to get an invite to a goddamn potluck, probably, and you know as well as I do that all Betty has are friends. So why keep her in the dark?”

Dilton ripped the glasses off his sweaty nose bridge. “I don’t really know why…it just hasn’t come up. Even if it did, I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell her.”

“Why not you? Don’t you think you owe it to her?” he challenged, “I don’t remember anyone else outside of Betty being nice to you in school.”

“While that’s true…” he trailed off, his beady eyes twitching, “We all like Archie too much to bring it up. I mean, what if they call off their engagement because of this?”

“You think Andrew has no plan to leave Betty for Grundy?”

A rowdy group of teenage girls, clearly from the other side of the tracks, stumbled past them. Dilton made the smart call to wait for them to get out of earshot. If there was anything he’d learned in his years as a private eye, it was that it was always the high schoolers that circulate life-ruining rumours. He might not agree with what Andrew was doing with his private life, but the operative word here is ‘private.’ 

“He hasn’t flat out said it, but I don’t think so,” he said tentatively and shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his coach jacket sagging around his puny shoulders, “I can’t really see those two not ending up together. Can you?”

No, that would be a freak of nature.

“What about Alison? What does she know?’

“Nothing,” Doiley shook his head vehemently, “Betty doesn’t suspect a thing and same goes for Alison. She doesn’t even know anyone who spends time at the rec centre. Jughead, man…” he rubbed the back of his neck like he was preparing it for the noose, “I’ll leave Ali alone if you don’t make a deal out of this.”

“You’re not in the position to bargain, Dilton.”

“I’m asking as a friend,” he pled his case, “Please don’t turn me in. Alison is…she’s just different. I know I shouldn’t have let things gone this far but she’s interested in the same things as I am, and she actually likes talking to me. Surely, that’s not wrong…”

He cocked his head. “The girl is barely a junior.”

His eyes turned a muddy blue all of the sudden and his mouth flopped like a dead fish, “We never got to be children.”

“That’s not how it works,” he swallowed the drink down like it was a bitter dose of medicine, “You don’t get a do-over.”

“But what if I want a do-over?” Doiley rebutted stubbornly and whipped around in his seat to face him with a defeated expression, “You and I, we never had a chance to be kids. It’s not fair.”

 _Nothing is ever fair around here_ , he knew that better than anyone else.

“Get Alison home before her curfew, and never see her ever again,” he warned, “Take this as a friendly warning because if I catch you near her or Riverdale High ever again, I’ll call Keller quicker than you can put your car in drive.”

Dilton never finished his drink but he threw down a twenty to cover the next round anyway.

* * *

Junkies had become rampant on the Southside. They were broke and waiting around every corner. More importantly, junkies were the all-knowing beings that were willing to talk for the right price.

Most of the time, Joaquin was a sure bet. Not because the man was a trust-worthy source but because he was desperate enough to be one so he could avoid another roundtrip to the sing-sing. The skinny man him at the Wyrm with a black eye that he didn’t care enough to ask about, instead he lit a cigarette and waited for the town’s dark secrets to pour out of him. He pulled a chair close to him and sat down. It was rare to find someone who felt the weight of the years more than he did.

“I don’t know nothing about Cooper and Andrew’s relationship,” Joaquin was firm on the fact, “No one cares about that shit.”

“I do,” he said coldly, “Someone else does too, or else I wouldn’t be asking.”

“Why?” the other man retorted and slicked his greasy hair back with his dirt-stained fingernails, “Shit, if anything I thought you’d be all over the Hermosa fuckshit.”

“And pray tell, what’s the deal with Hermosa Lodge?’

“Um, she’s missing?” Joaquin supplied like he was the one missing a few brain cells and not the other way around.

“It’s been less than a week.”

“You wouldn’t see it that way if it was some innocent lamb from the Northside,” he reasoned bitterly, “No one has seen her in two weeks. Even Reggie Mantle hasn’t heard from her, and he’s her right-hand man. Admit it, something feels off.”

He slammed down his drink. He’d lost count of how many he’s had. He lost the ability to care after the first few. “Maybe she’s gone on a holiday.”

Joaquin quirked an imperious brow. “Without a notice?”

He dedicated time and energy into pretending not to know Hermosa; she did the same too. They had an unspoken agreement. He didn’t enter the speakeasy unless he needed to and she never served him unless someone turned up dead. They never discuss the girl they’ve both stopped waiting for. They never revisited the night they were abandoned either. It was the perfect arrangement until she disappeared too. Unlike the rest of the town, he preferred to think that she’d finally escaped.

“I don’t know man,” Joaquin sounded like he didn’t have a single clue; still he heard some sense in it even if he didn’t want to, “Who gets up and leaves like that?”

 _Lodge’s,_ the name tasted nasty even without him saying so.

“The woman’s probably just hiding out until all the sheep in wolf’s clothing wear themselves out. It’s debt collecting season and that dive of hers hasn’t been kicking lately,” he hypothesized without much need for concern.

“You’re probably right,” Joaquin concurred, although apathetically.

“What have you heard about Geraldine Grundy?”

“Who the fuck is that?”

He narrowed his eyes. “The new latest at Riverdale High.”

“Four eyes?”

“Yeah, that one.”

Joaquin waved a bartender over and he waved her away. He could tell by the fresh mark on his wiry arm that he shot up right before they met. That didn’t faze him; an addict feeding their addiction wasn’t unexpected. Nevertheless, he’d always been a firm believer of doing one or the other; not both, especially not when he needed the guy to iron out a few details to him.

“Not much,” the hollowed-eyes man sniffed, “Just that she’s chummy with the Blossom boy.”

“How chummy?”

“Enough to get people talking.”

He arched an urging brow and lit a Marlboro while he waited for him to go on.

Joaquin grumbled some smartass bullshit that he didn’t make him repeat. Then, disgruntled, he dished like the cheap snitch that he was, “That low-rate motel with the shitty paint job and all the shredded fly screens – you know the one wedged between Greendale’s and that gas station you used to say look like it came straight out of ‘Night of the Living Dead’?”

“Yeah, yeah, get to the point.”

“The Ghouls aren’t big on a Blossom being on their turf, no surprise there,” he scoffed, “A couple of them kept a close eye on him and caught him and four eyes going in and out of the motel a few times.”

“Was this a recent development?” he asked, blowing out a ring of smoke.

He thought on it for a brief second. “About a month ago? That’s when I first and last heard about it anyway. What’s any of this got to do with carrot top and ponytail?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he mumbled into his whiskey, “In fact, worry about it so little that you forget all about this conversation, Understand?”

He nodded, acid-blue eyes watching him like a frightened squirrel as he got up, his legs felt all wobbly from all the liquor he’d ingested tonight.

“Call me if you hear anything else about Blossom junior or Grundy,” it wasn’t a request, Joaquin knew that too, “ _Don’t_ call me if you need bailing out.”


End file.
